


Soldier On

by zarabithia



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tales) - Fandom, Rapunzel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/F, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red's cloak didn't always used to be red, and Rapunzel's hair wasn't always so short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldier On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice/gifts).



Red's cloak didn't always used to be red, and Rapunzel's hair wasn't always so short.

Of course, most of the ungrateful citizens of Red's no-longer overcrowded, but still equally selfish post-war city didn't remember those times. These days they cast cowardly glances up into the sky, looking fearfully for Red and Rapunzel to swoop out of the sky and cause their deaths. The citizens easily believed the horror stories fed to them by the king and all of his censored media and never had the sense to question why the only people who showed up dead by Red and Rapunzel's hands were those who deserved it.

They didn't remember the soldier Red had been, always on the front line in the king's white and yellow colors, next to General Wolf. They didn't remember the blood Red shed, her own or those of the enemies who fought to take over their land. They didn't remember the ache Red had felt when her beloved General had fallen in a hail of bullets from the opponent's rifle, or the way her general's blood had soaked through Red's cloak, staining the king's colors.

It was easier to think they didn't remember, at any rate, than to believe that they just didn't care. But, in her more private moments, long after Rapunzel had fallen asleep at her side, Red allowed herself the acknowledgment that everything she'd ever fought for, everything she had believed so hard in, didn't amount to a damn to anyone.

Still, Red supposed her people were not nearly as bad as Rapunzel's people had been to her. Rapunzel, who had served her queen so faithfully as a tower sniper in the royal guard, had made the mistake of lying with one of the queen's own kept boys. For that, Rapunzel's service record was forgotten, as she was forced to submit to public humiliation before being turned over to the enemy.

By the time Rapunzel showed up in the king's prison, Red was there to greet her, as a soldier. Red was supposed to do her job and watch the most prized of the prisoners until the public execution, but instead she found herself listening in morbid fascination to the tales of a world so different from her own. Rapunzel came from a land where hair could be used as a sense of loyalty the same way the cloaks belonging to the king Red served did.

"She drove daggers into his eyes to punish him," Rapunzel told Red, of the boy who had cost Rapunzel her hair. "She thinks cutting my hair and giving me to you as a peace offering will hurt me, just as badly. She's wrong. She can't take away what I was."

Rapunzel was already angry when they met. She told Red later that Red was too, it just took the aim of a good sniper to find the weak spots, caused by a war that had done nothing but cultivate a land of ungrateful criminals, and push.

Rapunzel's aim was true, and the soldier and the prisoner escaped together, days before the execution was scheduled.

They could have fled. Queen Aurora and Queen Cindy, whose hearts were always larger than their brains, would have no doubt offered Red and Rapunzel asylum in their kingdoms. Empress Jasmine, with her penchant for making criminals part of functioning society, might have even allowed them a place in her royal guard.

But that wasn't why Red left her king's guard. She was a solider once, and a solider she would always be. She'd fought to save her land from invaders from beyond, once. Following the war, her home needed saving from the people within it.

She would do that, because doing the right thing was what being a soldier was all about, even when the right thing was hard. Even when doing the right thing meant eliminating former neighbors and friends and former innocents that she had once protected - she was still _right._

There was no doubt about that. After everything that had been sacrificed, all the blood that had been shed, all the loved ones lost - the citizens of Red's land were not going to ruin those sacrifices with greed and lawlessness. Whether the crime was small, such as looting, or larger, such as murder, Red would keep the citizen from ever repeating their crime.

She would save them from themselves, even if they called her a criminal for doing it.

It was a big task, but Red wasn't forced to do it alone. Red had a good woman on one side of her and her rifle on the other. She clung to them, because they were all she had left.

In the war Red was fighting these days, a rifle and a traitor were company enough to help Red soldier on.


End file.
